Landlords injecting £3.61bn a year into local economies

Landlords across the UK are making significant financial contributions to their local economies spending a collective £3.61bn a year, research from Aldermore has found.

Landlords spent on average £1,443 in the past 12 months on services such as plumbers, builders, letting agents and other tradespeople and all hired from the local community for most of their requirements.

Of the total amount paid to local service providers, landlords spent the most on letting agents coming to £879m in the past 12 months, followed by £442m on general handy-workers and £396m on plumbers.

Also, landlords spent £375.4m on electricians, £377.3m on builders, and £243.2m on cleaners.

Damian Thompson, group managing director of retail finance at Aldermore, said: “Landlords are an integral part of local communities across the UK, providing investment and fulfilling the demand of the expanding private rented sector.

“Around every landlord is an ecosystem, in which they pay local tradespeople, like plumbers, builders, decorators, for jobs and those companies in turn train up employees and pay their own local suppliers for services also.

“The contribution landlords make to local communities extends much wider than merely providing rental accommodation.

“Our findings show supporting local economies also brings benefits to landlords own businesses. Local workers bring a lot of value to landlords with respondents to our survey citing in particular the quality work, cost effectiveness and the understanding of local areas as key benefits.”

Over a third (39%) said trust is the main reason why they turn to someone local, while one quarter (26%) said that due to not living close to their rental property, having local people do maintenance is reassuring to them.

One in three (31%) want to support their local economy by using local tradespeople and one in four (24%) said they tend to be cheaper to alternatives which helps keep their business costs down.

Aldremore surveyed 1,000 UK-based landlords to carry out its research.